Trumpeter F-8C Conversion, Brown Bear's 1 V 6 Duel (29 Apr: Done)

[Oldbaldguy]

I vote with John the First for the overall green on green camo.  Compliments the gray and white Crusader very nicely and should be easy enough in 1/72.

[easixpedro]

15 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

I vote with John the First for the overall green on green camo.  Compliments the gray and white Crusader very nicely and should be easy enough in 1/72.

Concur. Resprayed it last night. I managed some mottling too before the hose from my compressor to the airbrush came apart. It's only 30 years old--why don't things last anymore?! 

Also started some more refined chipping of the paint.  I think Tamiya acrylics are easier to chip off the AS-12 than the Vallejo, which just comes right off.  Still experimenting though.

[mc65]

Hi Peter,

just to add confusion, somewhere (but where ??) I read that the camouflaged MiGs didn't have the insignia on the wings.

anyway, I find the camo proposed by Jeroan The Camo for a Nam MiG!

 

regarding the chipping, I guess everyone has their own preferences.
The mine for this are the lifecolor, diluted with water instead of the dedicated thinner.

 

cheers, Paolo

 

[easixpedro]

Finally had a chance to sit down and update this. Finished the build last weekend, but haven't had a moment to sit down and upload pics.

 

For the AIM-9s, I actually used some old Tamiya ones from the stash. They look funky, but that's because the control vanes are too far back. Simply cut and glue in the right spot and you have a decent looking AIM-9D.  Here's the Tamiya one, vs my modified one and the Trumpeter. (I went back and fixed the raised portions with styrene as I wasn't happy with my results)

 

Here's how I fixed/made the Y-Racks. Essentially found a photo of some Hasegawa F-8 sprues and blew them up to the right size. (and you can see the Zactoman AIM-9D that I also used to ensure my efforts above were good). Allowed me to put the Trumpeter versions on top and see that they were off by up to 5mm in random spots.  Easy to make--just took a piece of styrene stock and bent the edge and trimmed to shape. No pics though.

 

And without further ado, here's pics of the completed scene.  Was running out of light and she's tough to photograph, so they aren't the best.  Likely won't do an RFI, as I've already moved onto other things--entire build was just an attempt to slap something together that wasn't as time consuming as the Prowler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Am going to knock out a few 1/48th builds that have been sitting and get the 'stash' down to only 2 kits.  Shocking I know, but having moved every few years for most of my adult life, I've kind of enjoyed not having a monstrous collection of unbuilt kits.  Will finish up an A-7E for a friend and then get after an old (?) Revell SB2C that I've been wanting to build for awhile.  That will be a scene depicting VB-16 attacking IJN Nagato at Yokosuka in July 1945.  Have had the vision in my noggin for sometime, so time to finish it!

-Peter

[John1]

Great work Peter.   I hope you'll also do build-logs of your 48th scale stuff so we can follow along.

 

 

[easixpedro]

1 hour ago, John1 said:

I hope you'll also do build-logs of your 48th scale stuff so we can follow along.

SLUF is almost done and I never took pics, so that's right out. Have been mulling doing one of the SB2C. However,  it's been a backburner project for awhile--I'd pull it out an tinker and put it back waiting for the impetus. Any build log will be jumping in mid-stream, so we'll see. Do love the Beast however and have a ton of reference material about this particular event, so may share just to provide the background.

[GreyGhost]

THAT is going to be an Awesome Display ..! 

 

-Gregg

[Oldbaldguy]

Oh really do like the finished product.  Never in my life could I have come up with that. Very nifty.

[Redcap1960]

On 3/25/2022 at 12:27 PM, easixpedro said:

 

You aint kidding! And 100% agree! 

 

How's this for cool?  https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2011-052-doc1.pdf It's Major John Boyd's Test Report that started it all. From the National Archives. A mere Major started a revolution and it's all there. Not sure anything I did at that same age and rank changed the world...

 

For everyone else wondering what Pig and I are bantering about, John Boyd is famous in the Tac Air world. He and his acolytes became known as the "Fighter Mafia" and really started a revolution and changed thinking and tactics. Directly responsible for the lightweight fighter competition that resulted in both the F-16 and F-18.

Unfortunately, he was also despised by large numbers of senior military personnel and politicians, particularly senior generals, within his own Service and never given the recognition he deserved by the USAF. despite saving the F-15 project. Whilst the Army fed off (and butchered and cocked-up) some his ideas, it was the Marines that took to Boyd's concepts with gusto and it changed how they fought and fight conflicts to this very day. Boyd was a polymath and a genius, as well as an ornery and antagonistic sod, but despite his faults, he was brilliant and IMHO on a par with and one of the greatest great military theoreticians the world has ever known.   

 

If you haven't already done so and ever get the chance, read his two biography's; 'The Mind of War' by Grant Hammond & 'Boyd' by Robert Corum as well as 'The Pentagon Wars' by Col James. G. Burton.        

[Confusionreigns178]

Excellent work on display here! It's a good change to see two aircraft in their natural habitat and "locking horns". The Crusader looks very mean and efficient. 

 

Thanks for sharing with us. 

 

Chris.  

[Marcel111]

Wow, cool project, very creative idea!

[Pete Fleischmann]

On 2/20/2022 at 9:06 AM, Oldbaldguy said:

You know, an awful lot of the public thinks fighter pilots in combat fling themselves around the sky for hours without regard to anything until one guy starts trailing smoke and the other guy goes home.  Few are aware that fighter pilots must have a working knowledge of physics, be able to constantly recalculate, be an expert at energy management, systems management, resource management and situational awareness, endure constantly changing G loads, possess unique tactical skills and a working knowledge of the other guy’s capabilities, make instant judgement calls and endure just plain hard, sweaty work and a million other things that are all crammed into a couple of minutes of 3D pandemonium and mayhem while working through the very human need to protect your own ass.  Many people on this site, for example, have a pretty fair grasp of aviating, but how many understand what it means to “work in the vertical” or why it was necessary or how it’s done?  Or something as simple as how much their own head weighs in a 5G turn?  Not many, I’ll bet.  

yep. OBG just scratched the surface on this topic…

 

cheers

P